"We only have a few hours, so listen carefully. If you're hearing this story, you're already in danger. Sadie and I might be your only chance."

So begins The Kane Chronicles, an Urban Fantasy series by Rick Riordan that follows in the vein of his Percy Jackson and the Olympians and The Heroes of Olympus books. The three books in the series, The Red Pyramid, The Throne of Fire and The Serpent's Shadow all take the larger Egyptian Mythology and transplants it to a western setting. Other books in the series include the companion book The Kane Chronicles Survival Guide and the short story The Son of Sobek. Another short story, The Staff of Serapis, was released in May 2014. The third and final story in the crossover, The Crown of Ptolemy, was released with the House of Hades paperback in March 2015 and as a standalone e-book in May 2015. During his The Sword Of Summer book tour in 2015 Rick Riordan declared the completion of the short stories as their own book Demigods & Magicians.

This time, the story centers on siblings Carter and Sadie Kane who discover that they're descendants of ancient Egyptian magicians. This leads them to learning to master their powers while taking up the primary duty of a magician: fighting and banishing the gods once worshiped throughout Ancient Egypt. Some snags in the process include their only possible allies being out to kill them, ancient Egyptian monsters and figuring out how to defeat the god of evil himself.

The books are told from both heroes' perspectives, instead of just one like its big sister series. The books are also revealed to take place in the same universe as Percy Jackson's tale does, with small shout outs to the first series here and there. The tone of the books also shift slightly more towards Darker and Edgier as they go on, but it isn't much of a slide from the first or second books.

A graphic novel adaptation of the first book has been released. See here. A graphic novel adaptation of the second book was released in October 2015. See here. A graphic novel adaptation of the finale has been announced to be released on October 3, 2017.

This series provides examples of:

Ancient Grome: Some of the gods' names used are actually the Greek translations, including five of the main gods (Horus, Isis, Osiris, and Nephthys), Anubis, Thoth, Apophis, etc. However, others do use the (approximated) Egyptian spellings, including Set, Bast, Bes, and Khonsu. It may be justified as most people are more familiar with the Greek versions, since anyone would hardly connect with "Anupev" or "Ausir" for example, not to mention the Egyptian spellings being hazy and mere educated guesses, in contrast to the already-certain Greek translation.

Fridge Brilliance: Egypt was ruled by the Ptolemaic dynasty, after all. Maybe the Egyptians adopted the Greek names and got stuck with them years after their rule came to an end. Possibly.

Adventure Duo: Carter and Sadie need each other to get anywhere. Carter's knowledge of Egyptology and Sadie's ability to read hieroglyphs are just the tip of this iceberg.

Moses is name-dropped too, as the only "foreign" magician to best The House Of Life in a magic duel.

Alpha Bitch: Drew in The Serpent Shadow. Not surprising, considering that she is also this (to a greater extent) in The Lost Hero.

Arab Beoble Talk: In The Throne of Fire, Sadie and Walt come across an oasis in an Egyptian desert while looking for clues regarding how to find Ra and find an ad for Pepsi, except that it, to Sadie's amusement, is spelled "Bebsi".

Sadie: So we have to drink Bebsi after eating Bizza?

Art Initiates Life: Shelby, one of the youngest magicians, is briefly mentioned as having this power in The Serpent's Shadow.

Artistic License – Astronomy: In The Serpent's Shadow Apophis is attacking nomes during nights of the new moon, when darkness is greatest. Carter says its attacks are timed for when the moon is at the top of its transit. But during the new moon, the top of the moon's transit is at noon.

Chekhov's Sequel Hook: At the end of the trilogy, it's implied that the next thing the Kanes will be doing is investigating some "unexplained magic" on Long Island. Who do we know that practices magic on Long Island? Carter investigates this occurrence in the audiobook The Son of Sobek, and bumps into Percy Jackson, who is doing the same thing. Naturally, they mistake each other for a rogue magician and an evil demigod and duke it out, but eventually call a truce to face the titular giant crocodile. The audiobook ends with Carter giving Percy a means of contacting him if he ever needs help.

Big Bad: Set thinks he is this in the first book, but is really a pawn of Apophis, the real Big Bad.

Big Good: Before his death, Iskandar. He is replaced with Amos, who becomes the head of the House of Life after Desjardins' death in The Throne of Fire.

Also, the retired gods of the Sunny Acres descend down the lower levels of Duat to assist Carter, Zia, and Sadie against the army of Chaos in The Serpent's Shadow.

Bland-Name Product: In the graphic novel of The Red Pyramid, Khufu eats "HappyOs," which was probably done because they actually show the box, whereas the original book merely mentions "Cheerios." The box, though, looks almost exactly like a regular box of Cheerios, right down to the stylized "G" that is the General Mills logo.

Body and Host: When a magician is being possessed by a god they are known as "hosts" or "godlings". Can have shades of body snatching, as the god is sometimes able to forcibly take control of their host's body.

Britain Is Only London: To be fair, Sadie did live there. Otherwise, averted when the characters visit other countries. In Russia, for example, they visit Saint Petersburg, not Moscow, and Egypt is practically explored in its entirety, just by virtue of having most of the second and third books being set there.

But Not Too Black: While both Carter and Sadie are biracial, Sadie is described as having lighter skin and hair. Most people don't realize they are family when they first meet them.

But Not Too Foreign: Sadie was born and raised in America until age 6, where she was moved to England to live with her grandparents. That said, she acts more or less like a native-born Brit, and her chapters are written in British English.

Brother–Sister Team: Carter and Sadie. Having been separated for around six years prior to the beginning of the story, it takes them a little while to get into the hang of things, but they do.

Cannot Spit It Out: Walt never manages to explain just what he and Anubis have been discussing but that's mostly Sadie's fault.

Anubis: Couldn't get a word in edgewise?

Calling Card: In The Serpent's Shadow, Apophis leaves the Egyptian hieroglyph for chaos wherever he destroys a Nome.

Cool Sword: Carter's khopesh. Like all of Riordan's stuff, its a case of Shown Their Work, as the khopesh is a real sword used by the ancient Egyptians. Carter uses the hook of the blade to give himself leverage not possible with a normal sword.

CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Averted in The Throne of Fire, at least the "pretty" part. When Carter Kane does it on Zia, she immediately tries to punch him upon being revived.

Creator Provincialism: Very much averted, unlike its sister series. The series opens in London, where Carter meets with Sadie for the first time after years. While the first book mostly sticks in the US, the second book goes to Saint Petersburg, and later the characters arrive in Alexandria, Egypt so Sadie can cure Carter from the snake's poison. In fact, the third book, while opening a bit in Dallas, takes place almost entirely in Egypt, where the magicians have their final battle against Apophis.

Crossover Cosmology: Although the book only focuses on the Egyptian gods, Thoth mentions that he gets mistaken for the Greek god Hermes and having meet him, and Amos mentions that Manhattan has its own gods, a reference to the Greek gods from Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

We also learn why monsters from all series take time to reform: their 'death' banishes them deep into the Duat.

The Crown of Ptolemy clarifies that the Mist from the Percy Jackson series is simply the first layer of the Duat, wrapped around the magical features of the world.

Moses also makes an appearance in the history hallway.

At the beginning of The Throne Of Fire, Carter mentions that he's seen winged horses across the river in Manhattan.

In the short story The Son of Sobek Carter teams up with Percy Jackson but they are very careful to avoid revealing too much about their respective worlds, sensing that they're supposed to remain separate.

The Staff of Serapis features Sadie teaming up with Annabeth Chase.

The Crown of Ptolemy shows Percy, Annabeth, Carter and Sadie all teaming up against Setne.

Dawn of an Era: The kingship of the House of Life ended when the last pharaoh, Cleopatra VII, committed suicide; Iskandar even goes further by stating that the kingship already ended when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, since he was followed by the Ptolemaic dynasty, who came from a foreign land, i.e. Greece. However, at the end of the series, Carter is able to claim the throne because of his deeds, not to mention being a descendant of the pharaohs and having hosted a god. The kingship is thus resumed again.

Deliberate Values Dissonance: Comes up often regarding the Egyptian Deities. The most obvious is the Vulture Goddess Nekhbet, Protector of the Strong. It sounds like a joke about self justified power. But the gods primarily exist to preserve Order, and are not at all egalitarian.

Deus ex Machina: Bast returning at the end, but justified in that it was actually done by gods.

Direct Line to the Author: Each book begins with a note in which the author describes how he has received a recording, which he has transcribed as the contents of the novel.

Kind of. The gods prefer to take host from certain bloodlines with powerful magic that usually contain at least one pharaoh at some point in time or another. But it's unclear if the gods preferred them because they were pharaohs or if they ended up becoming pharaohs specifically because they could host the gods.

A bit of both The greatest pharaohs were those capable of hosting the gods; so the gods preferred their descendants because they were strong enough to be hosts.

Eternal Recurrence: The natural state for Gods and monsters, and which the Egyptian Gods are specifically going out of their way to avoid by taking human hosts. Contrast Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which share a universe but where the Gods don't take steps to avoid this.

Evil Versus Oblivion: Why Set ultimately fights Apothis. While he is technically aligned with Chaos, he views his role as shaking things up and breaking old patterns. Apophis just wants to destroy everything.

Eye Of Horus Means Egypt: In the series' title the word "Kane" is heavily stylized to resemble to the Eye Of Horus; true Horus is a major recurringCharacter, but it's still being used to symbolize the stories roots is Egyptian Mythology.

Expy: The series is very similar to Percy Jackson and the Olympians, another series by the same author. One who has read both can easily tell that the characters are alike (apart from the same universe and the same writing style).

You have a smart, but shy Carter as Annabeth. A Book Dumb (but not stupid) and sarcastic Sadie as Percy (except she is more outgoing). Anubis also is the god of the afterlife as Nico is the son of the god of death and both lived...for a very long time.

When Percy meets Sadie in The Crown of Ptolemy he muses that if he and Annabeth had a daughter she'd be just like Sadie, with Annabeth's looks when she was younger and his own impulsiveness.

French Jerk: Desjardins. Although not so much when he execrates Apophis, thus sacrificing his life to to so.

Fighting a Shadow: Shabtis can be used to create "stand ins" for real magicians. The Zia after the museum incident is also one. The real one is hidden. In "Throne of Fire" she's saved from The Place of Red Sands.

Jerkass Gods: Averted, a few like Set and Khonsu are major jerks and a few others have their moments, but most tend to be fairly respectful of mortals,compared to the Greek Gods at the least, with Ra being pretty much an ideal grandfather.

In The Red Pyramid Amos throws sand into the air which forms into an arrow pointing to Las Cruces. It even seems to tell him how far it is. Sadie apparently has learned something similar by the second book.

In The Serpent's Shadow they find Apophis' shadow using the Book of Thoth, which Carter describes as a combination compass, tour guide, and farmer's almanac.

Magic Knight: Carter, Zia and many other magicians of the House of Life, especially those who specialize in combat magic. Several of the gods and monsters of the series also display a combination of magical and combat prowess.

In The Red Pyramid the Egyptian Queen navigates into the Land of the Dead via a map called Spells of Coming Forth by Day, a.k.a. The Book of the Dead.

In The Serpent's Shadow the First Nome is shown to have a map of the world showing clay figurines being destroyed as loyal magicians are lost. It's not clear if it's the map itself that's magic or the figures, but it could well be both.

Male Gaze: Carter finds it difficult to look the overendowed hippopatamus goddess Tawaret in the face.

Marked to Die: Julius knew he would be possessed by Osiris, and eventually end up "dead" as the host for the Lord of the Dead. Walt's family is also cursed to die young and using magic speeds up the process.

Mook–Face Turn: While invading Vlad the Inhaler's territory, the siblings encounter a teenage Russian magician who they manage to scare off without having to engage. He later comes back to repay the favor, joining Brooklyn House in standing against Apophis and bringing the kids a crucial piece of information.

More Than Mind Control: Setne uses this in The Crown of Ptolemy as a way to create openings in the heroes' mental defenses. He gets Carter with his desire to honor his father, Sadie with the offer of rule-breaking and Annabeth with the temptation to gather all the world's knowledge. He strikes out with Percy, though, because Setne doesn't understand what he wants. Setne offers immortal godhood but Percy isn't swayed, having already rejected it in The Last Olympian.

Mr. Fanservice: Anubis. Passages describing his appearance are worth rereading just for the beautiful mental image.

Nay-Theist: Per Ankh (and apparently the Egyptians, later on in their history) don't so much worship the gods as keep them under control. In fact, when five gods are released from the Rosetta Stone (not even entirely evil gods) Per Ankh's first thought is to eliminate anyone who would make a suitable host for them.

Near Villain Victory: At the end of The Serpent's Shadowboth the book's prelude and the oft-mentioned ancient prophecies get fulfilled when Apophis manages to swallow Ra. Of course, when Apophis gets erased from existence 3 pages later Ra tumbles down completely unscathed.

Nice Job Breaking It Carter: In the end, Apophis being destroyed also causes the gods to retreat, because of some sort of Yin-Yang system.

Noodle Incident: Carter and Sadie's actions while recording are often briefly described as such.

Also, the "Spatula Incident," a past fight between Carter and Sadie's father and their maternal grandparents.

And the time that their Julius punched his father-in-law in the face.

No Such Thing as Wizard Jesus: Averted in another important religious figure- it is made very clear that Moses was actually a magician. On top of that, a comment from Bes in The Throne of Fire suggests that one of his miracles, the parting of the Red Sea, was something any (very powerful) magician from Ancient Egypt could've done.

Although gods are manifestly real, All Myths Are True, and Moses was apparently a badass enough wizard that he's the only outsider ever to best the House of Life. So it's still arguable, especially since we learn "other magic" is simply how the House of Life refers to the power of foreign gods. It's also worth noting that according to Amos in book 1, calling upon and channeling a god was how magic was originally preformed.

Official Couple: Julius and Ruby, Carter and Zia, Sadie and Walt/Anubis, and Bes and Tawaret (although Tawaret is supposed to be the wife of Apophis...)

Oh My Gods!: Averted as Sadie frequently says "Oh my God," and "God," throughout the book, but played straight with Bast and others more familiar with Ancient Egypt. Sadie switches over by the second book.

Zia's preferred usage is "Gods of Egypt..."

One Steve Limit: Somewhat averted. Julius is the name of of Carter and Sadie's father. One of the new trainees at Brooklyn House, meanwhile, is named Julian.

Order vs. Chaos: The central conflict of the Egyptian Pantheon, rather than Good vs Evil.

Our Gods Are Different: Egyptian gods in this series act very differently from the Greek ones in Riordan's other series, although they share the same basic world. They are largely spiritual, needing a host (usually human, of royal blood) to interact with the world. This is the explanation for the Eternal Recurrence they face, since they have played out the same rivalries forever in different bodies. It also blunts the incest, since they take on the relationships of their hosts. They could be siblings in one generation and lovers in another.

Passed in Their Sleep: In The Red Pyramid, Sadie has a conversation with Iskander, the kindly, two-thousand-year-old head of the House of Life, in which he seems to be on her and Carter's side, but the next morning they discover Iskander died in his sleep, which means their lives are now in danger, as his replacement immediately orders their arrest and execution.

Reassigned to Antarctica: The House of Life has 360 nomes (That is, places that members can be assigned to) the first is Egypt, where it was founded. 360 is literally Antarctica, where magicians are assigned as punishment, and populated only by "a few cold magicians and some magic penguins."

Rebel Leader: Sarah Jacobi and her head lieutenant Kwai are major thorns in the Kane's sides. They and their group are secondary antagonists in the latter books.

Red Herring: Set tricks Carter and Sadie into thinking that Desjardins is his host. It's really Amos.

Red Oni, Blue Oni/Sibling Yin-Yang: It can actually go either way. Normally, Sadie, being more brash in contrast to reserved and bookish Carter, clearly seems to be the red. However, Carter shows more of the impulsiveness seen in the "red" when in combat partially due to being the host of the warrior god Horus.

Retired Badass: The gods who retired in Sunny Acres. No matter what they are now, they are still gods who can kick ass. As the army of Chaos finds the hard way in The Serpent's Shadow.

Scales of Justice: When the Kane siblings enter the Hall Of Judgement for the feather of truth Anubis's scales are seen, but are broken since Osiris has been trapped by Set. They get fixed by the end of the first book.

Sealed Evil in a Can: When Julius attempted to summon Osiris, he released him along with his four siblings, one of which was Set.

At the end of The Crown of PtolemySetne is imprisoned inside a magical snow globe.

Sequel Hook: "Should further recordings fall into my hands, I will relay the information."

At the end of the Carter/Percy Jackson crossover The Son of Sobek Carter gives Percy the means to call on him again, should another team-up be required.

Shapeshifting: Carter and Sadie can turn into a hawk and a kite respectively, as those are the sacred birds of Horus and Isis. In the first book learning how to properly shape shift goes along with learning to use their powers, so a handful of the associated tropes show up:

Animorphism: In addition to the obvious, sometimes the various gods will do so by possessing one of their sacred animals. Bast's main host is Muffin the cat, and in The Throne of Fire Horus talks to Carter through a pigeon.

Word of God states that they are in the same universe, and that the events of The Red Pyramid happen almost directly after the events of The Last Olympian.

Drew and Lacy, daughters of Aphrodite, go to the same school as Sadie and the other magicians of Brooklyn House. Sadie comments that Lacy mentioned their 'summer camp' that they attended. She also mentions investigating reports of magic activity on Long Island.

A short story at the end of the paperback edition of The Serpent's Shadow is an outright crossover between the two series.

He gets it again in The Throne of Fire, when the apparel that he's given to enter Duat conspicuously lacks a shirt.

When not rocking his biker/goth/black jacket outfit, Anubis wears an Egyptian attire that doesn't feature such luxury as a shirt as well. As the narrator who looks at this particular moment is Sadie, and Anubis is...Anubis, she enjoys the view really well.

Shout-Out: To Percy Jackson, of course. "Manhattan has other problems. Other gods. It's best we stay separate."

There's also the incident where they meet Thoth, who complains about how he used to get confused with Hermes.

Carter also sees a winged horse that he thought was an illusion because of the magic security system.

During a fight with some water demons in the Nile, Carter wishes to himself that he had the powers of a sea god.

Also to Doctor Who as one of Sadie's shabti was a thermos with googly eyes that yelled Exterminate! She was raised in England. Plus she mentions Jelly Babies later on.

Spell My Name with an "S": Justified, since Ancient Egypts wrote without vowels. Is the Sun God called Ra or Re? (Ra in the original, Re in the German translation, both versions are common.)

The series actually uses the Ancient Greek forms of the names of the gods, probably because they are more familiar and consistent since the Ancient Greeks wrote with vowels, while the Ancient Egyptians didn't, which means that we can only guess what their readings might be like. Osiris would be called "Ausir", Isis "Iset", Apophis "Apep", and Horus something along the lines of "Haru".

Summon to Hand: Carter can pull his khopesh out of the Duat if he needs it. It takes some time to get down pat but he can do it effortlessly by the time of the third book. Sadie is much less adept at this.

Super Mode: Carter, other combat magicians and most gods have a combat avatar, a gigantic energy form that surrounds them and gives them enhanced strength and durability at the cost of being slow and requiring a lot of energy to sustain.

Supernormal Bindings: The Seven Ribbons of Hathor, the most powerful restraints used by the House of Life, capable of holding even the gods. Setne is shown in them, along with enough binding charms and spells to prevent just about any means of escaping, and he still manages it.

Talking in Your Dreams: Magicians wander the Duat in the sleep if they don't anchor their ba to their body (and sometimes even then) leading to a lot of conversations with gods and demons that they couldn't have in person.

Tangled Family Tree: The Egyptian pantheon has one. The main characters are squicked by the perceived incest, but it's explained that the gods take on the family relationships of their various incarnations. For example, Isis is Horus' sister in one life and mother in another to reflect the hosts they inhabited, and Osiris is Isis' father rather than her husband in their current incarnation.

Weirdness Censor: Magicians use simple, easy magic to change the appearance of things from mortals, who see what they think is real.

Wizarding School: Brooklyn House is used to train new magicians in the second and third books.

Women Are Wiser: After Carter and Percy Jackson's team-up, Carter inscribes a one-use spell symbol on Percy's hand that will allow Percy to call for him if they need to team up again. After Sadie and Annabeth Chase meet they simply exchange phone numbers, because "boys can't be trusted to communicate."

Words Can Break My Bones: Every Ancient Egyptian words and hieroglyphs have effects if you have the necessary power to realize them. Even uttering simple commands such as "open" or "break" can do the desired effect, and drawing the ankh hieroglyph, if you are a powerful enough magician like Sadie, you can undo a destroying spell and restore an entire building from nothing.

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